Related Topics

PARIS (Reuters) - Nathalie Tauziat will be asked to step down from the French tennis federation's (FFT) management committee after she testified in favour of former coach Regis de Camaret who was sentenced to eight years in prison on Friday for raping young female players.

"Nathalie Tauziat's statement at the trial was deeply disturbing. On Monday we will ask her to resign from the management committee," FFT director general Gilbert Ysern told reporters on Saturday.

Tauziat, a former world number three who reached the Wimbledon final in 1998, told a Lyon court that she had not seen anything at the time De Camaret was coaching and that she did not believe his accusers, especially her former doubles partner Isabelle Demongeot.

De Camaret, now 70, was convicted of raping two female players then aged 12 and 13.

Some 20 of his former pupils have accused him of rape, attempted rape or fondling between 1977 and 1989.

The statute of limitations had run out on all but two, who accused De Camaret of rape or attempted rape.